Papers by Mauricio Aguilera
Revista de la Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias UNCuyo, 2021
The purpose of this study was to model Chinese consumers’ intention to purchase fresh cherries th... more The purpose of this study was to model Chinese consumers’ intention to purchase fresh cherries through direct and indirect relations and mediating role between perceived intrinsic quality, perceived extrinsic quality and satisfaction. The analytical method used was a structural equation modeling (SEM). Surveys were applied to 388 buyers in three traditional markets in Beijing, China. A confirmatory factor analysis was performed, which presented an adequate goodness of fit to accept the model, according to the literature, which confirmed the relations. The results showed, that perceived extrinsic quality and satisfaction are directly and significantly related to Chinese consumers’ intention to purchase fresh cherries. Additionally, an indirect and significant relationship was found between perceived intrinsic quality and purchase intention, through the mediating role of satisfaction. Highlights: Only the intrinsic perceived quality in fresh cherries is directly and significantly rela...
JBMR Plus, 2021
Postmenopausal osteoporosis is a disease manifesting in degradation of bone mass and microarchite... more Postmenopausal osteoporosis is a disease manifesting in degradation of bone mass and microarchitecture, leading to weakening and increased risk of fracture. Clinical trials are an essential tool for evaluating new treatments and may provide further mechanistic understanding of their effects in vivo. However, the histomorphometry from clinical trials is limited to 2D images and reflects single time points. Biochemical markers of bone turnover give global insight into a drug's action, but not the local dynamics of the bone remodeling process and the cells involved. Additionally, comparative trials necessitate separate treatment groups, meaning only aggregated measures can be compared. In this study, in silico modeling based on histomorphometry and pharmacokinetic data was used to assess the effects of treatment versus control on μCT scans of the same biopsy samples over time, matching the changes in bone volume fraction observed in biopsies from denosumab and placebo groups through year 10 of the FREEDOM Extension trial. In the simulation, treatment decreased osteoclast number, which led to a modest increase in trabecular thickness and osteocyte stress shielding. Long-term bone turnover suppression led to increased RANKL production, followed by a small increase in osteoclast number at the end of the 6-month-dosing interval, especially at the end of the Extension study. Lack of treatment led to a significant loss of bone mass and structure. The study's results show how in silico models can generate predictions of denosumab cellular action over a 10-year period, matching static and dynamic morphometric measures assessed in clinical biopsies. The use of in silico models with clinical trial data can be a method to gain further insight into fundamental bone biology and how treatments can perturb this. With rigorous validation, such models could be used for informing the design of clinical trials, such that the number of participants could be reduced to a minimum to show efficacy.
International Journal of Agriculture and Natural Resources, 2021
Most avocados consumed in France come from Peru or Chile. French suppliers vary based on the seas... more Most avocados consumed in France come from Peru or Chile. French suppliers vary based on the season; however, Chile is the main supplier of avocados during the winter season. The aim of this study is to analyze the key variables that influence French consumer satisfaction in the preference for Chilean avocados.This is substantiated using an exploratory multivariate analysis, which was performed on a causal model comprised of endogenous constructs: perceived extrinsic and intrinsic quality, perceived risk and perceived value. The sample consists of 346 French consumers of Chilean avocados in supermarkets of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. The main results show that the risk perceived by French consumers can only be related to the perceived extrinsic quality of the product. On the other hand, both perceived intrinsic and extrinsic quality are directly related to perceived value. Finally, it is concluded that French consumer satisfaction in the preference for Chilean avocados can be e...
Bone Reports, 2020
We show that the optical conductivity of bilayer graphene can reveal clearly the metal-insulator ... more We show that the optical conductivity of bilayer graphene can reveal clearly the metal-insulator transition driven by disorder. We choose the rhombohedral stacking configuration to characterize the graphene bilayer, and introduce the kernel polynomial method (KPM) to provide numerical results of the effect of local disorder on the behaviors of optical conductivity for lattices of considerable size. The Drude weight is found to decrease very rapidly with the increase of disorder and drop to zero at a critical strength W c , suggesting that Anderson metal-insulator transition can take place. In the superconducting case, the distribution of the inhomogeneous superconducting gap is obtained by solving self-consistently the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations under the mean-field description, and we see no appreciable change for the critical strength W c in the superconducting phase. However, the optical conductivity is found to drop significantly as predicted, especially in the weak disorder region.
Ciencia e investigación agraria, 2018
A. Chiang, B. Schnettler, M. Mora, and M. Aguilera. 2018. Perceived quality and satisfaction with... more A. Chiang, B. Schnettler, M. Mora, and M. Aguilera. 2018. Perceived quality and satisfaction with sweet cherries (Prunus Avium L.) in China: Confirming relationships through structural equations. Cien. Inv. Agr. 45(3): 210-219. In recent years, Chile has been the Chinese market's main supplier of fresh sweet cherries. The aim of this study was to develop a relational model with two working hypotheses to model Chinese consumer satisfaction with sweet cherries as a result of the quality perceived by intrinsic and extrinsic attributes. One hundred and ninety-three buyers in the Sanyuanli Market in the Chaoyang District, Beijing, were surveyed using closed-ended questions on a Likert scale. To develop a model that fulfilled the indicated objective, an exploratory factor analysis and a subsequent system of structural equations were used to confirm the relationships, presenting an adequate goodness-of-fit test to accept the model according to the literature. Among the main results, it was determined that consumer satisfaction with sweet cherries is explained by the perceived intrinsic quality, where medium size and color are the determining attributes, and the product price, Chilean origin and delivery time explain the perceived extrinsic quality (critical ratio of 2.937 and p-value of 0.003). Finally, the intrinsic quality positively and significantly influences Chinese consumer satisfaction with sweet cherries, in contrast to the results for perceived extrinsic quality, which are not statistically significant.
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Papers by Mauricio Aguilera